THE PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17324, 25 May 1918, Page 5

THE PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

TO THE EDITOB. Sin, —In ycrnr leaderette of Wednesday, tlio 22nd inst., in reference to Mr Howard Elliott and the Protestant Political Association, you say ho lias not taken the opportunity at any of his meetings to withdraw or offer a suitable apology for tho atrocious imputation that was cast by him in one of his " censored " letters last year upon the memory of a nun. Allow me, as one present at the meeting 011 Monday night, to say that Mr Howard Mliott, in referring to this matter, expressed his great sorrow for tho occurrence. More than this, he stated einpha-ticuly that what was written in that letter was never intended to bo used or made public in any way. The lettor was simply sent crut as a test to find out whether tho Post. Office officials were tampering with his mail. They fell into tho trap, and confiscated tho letter, and it was, only at tho commission of inquiry into this matter that the contents of the letter became disclosed. Shame, I say, on tho Post Office ollioials in tampering with tho mails, and confiscating letters not touching on the war! Thero is, too, tho fact that the peoplo of this dominion are led to infer that their letters are placed in the same category—namely, that their private correspondence is in danger of being abused and perhaps disclosed to all and sundry by the postal authorities. This and other matters touched on by Mr Elliott clearly point out the seriousness of what transpires in our civil service, and the great need of such a leagtio as tho P.P.A. to take up the duty of ameliorating them.—l am, etc., Reka. Dunedin, May 22. [If Mr Elliott had, ns our correspondent says, " expressed his groat sorrow for tho occurrence," there would have been 110 occasion for us to write in the terms which wo employed. Tho reports of the meeting show, however, that Mr Klliott confined himself to an expression of regret that tho parents of the nun had been caused pain by the disclosure of the contents of the censored letter. For that disclosure the Post Office was not responsible. It was to the existence of a. censorship over certain correspondence—a censorship that was not, as it scorns to us, warranted and that was probably illegal—that the disclosure was attributable. But does it not occur to our corrospondent that Mr Elliott might have applied a test, such as was thought by him to bo necessary, by preparing and proting letters that were not of the character of that for which he has been condemned so freely and, as wo think, so justly?— En. O.D.T.] Sir, You expend a deal of ■vituperation on Mr Elliott in your leaderette of Wednesday last, for asking in a private letter addressed to himself if a certain statement alx>ut a nun were true. The blame and vituperation should rest on those who rnnde tho contents public, instead of forwarding the letter to its address ?nd thus ending tho matter without hurting tho feelings of anyone. Why wore the contents made public? Was it to discredit Mr Elliott and hinder his work? Many people aro puzzled to know yoiu are so intolerant of a single inquiry m a private letter, while quite unmoved that Roman Catholic priests should linblushinglv stigmatise our Protestant fathers and mothers, dead and alive.—l am. efo.. E. M'Kerrow. May 23.

"A CLINCHER." TO THE EDITOR.

Srn, —Father Coffey, replying to my note in a recent issue of the Times, poses as a thought reader. He has managed to discover that I considered my letter a clincher. Whatever my opinion on the point may be, Father Coffey appears to think it a clincher for he most religiously dodges the clinch. It will be time enough to talk about secular education when Father Coffey has declared which method of government he stands for, majority rule or minority rule. I pointed to two important matters—Conscription and Home Rule. In the one case Father Coffey maintained the right of the minority to refuse to submit to the rule of the majority; in the other case he claimed the right of the majority to enforce its will on the minority. Before Father Coffey can sidetrack me on to secular education, he has to face the clincher.—l am, etc., Dunedin, May 24. F. Wilkixsox. INOCULATION AGAINST TYPHOID. TO THB EDITOR. Sir,—A recent issue of Le Matm gave prominence to an article "Pour Combattre ]a Typhoide." A recent discovery makes it possible to perform the vaccination without inconvenience in a single injection. In this connection it can be, and ought to be, remarked that it is only when a new medical method is to be introduced that the imperfections of the old are publicly admitted. .The new discovery is duo to a navy doctor, Le Moignic, and is going to render the anti-typhoid vaccination much less painful for the French soldiers. According to _ the doctor, the excellent vaccines of Vincent and Chanteinesse caused painful suffering, because the microbes injected have been suspended in water, which, by reason of its rapid diffusion through the tissues, made much too sudden an effect. _ With lipo-vaocine the microbes are administered in certain oils, which only yield to the blood very slowly, little by little. Two milliards of each of the three typhoid bacilli suitably attenuated are the requisito dose, but the doctor says_ that to inject all this at once into the soldier by the old system would put his life in danger; while the inoculation by separated and successive injections (ae performed in New Zealand) had effects disagreeable enough, if not grave, and accompanied often by fevers and sickness. The doctor further points out the military in convenience of immobilising continually an important fraction of the army, especially as the troops affected may be at any time required suddenly for field service. Tliia is a matter that might well be pressed on the Defence Department of this dominion, since it is clamouring now for more men; and not a few citizens are of the opinion that when it gets men it does not use them with conspicuous economy or judgment, and that it has permitted itself to be made the mouthpiece of a steady stream of misstatements, prevarications. and evasions, while it has also allowed the Medical Boards to pass a multitude of useless recruits, who have never reached the firing line, squandering hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process. This French doctor, with surprising insistence, makes no bones about the dangers of the old vaccine, and claims that the now method, by suppressing painful inconveniences and much reducing the number of troops disabled, will permit an important augmentation to the combative force of the army. Whv should not our New Zealand soldiers have the advantages of this lipo-vac-cine? The slightest mitigation in. the virulence of the vaccine at present inflicted on them would be something to the good. Finally, may I suggest that the members of the Medical Boards or other doctors who obey a secret order take it upon themselves to overrule decisions ehould be impeached. for the decisions referred to arc made at the War Office? —I am. etc., D. Wisuabt.